Yes Means Yes Bill

Trending News: In Case You Were Confused, 'No' Has Never Meant 'Yes' -- But Now It's Official

Why Is This Important?

Because ‘No’ has never meant ‘Yes,’ and the creeps who still can’t seem to differentiate between those vastly different words now have legal consequences to face for their actions.

Long Story Short

Months after the White House deemed sexual assaults on college campuses a bona fide epidemic, California lawmakers unanimously passed the ‘Yes Means Yes’ bill yesterday. The bill, aimed at colleges across America, requires the institutions to rethink their working definition of sexual consent from the legally ambiguous ‘No means No’ to a more legally sound ‘Yes means Yes.’

Long Story

You can get away with a lot in college. It’s not uncommon for any American student to ditch class on the regular or pay a classmate to write their final term paper — for the most part, no faculty member is the wiser. As of yesterday, however, there’s one thing students won’t be able to worm their way out of so easily, and that’s accusations of sexual assault.

California’s State Senate was the first to legally pass the ‘Yes Means Yes’ bill on Thursday, changing the way state-funded academic institutions define consent in a sexual context. ‘Yes Means Yes’ marks a desperately needed step towards ending the epidemic of sexual assault on college campuses across the nation — an effort promised by President Barack Obama earlier this year.

The bill is currently waiting on approval from Governor Jerry Brown, who must sign off on the policy by the end of September to officially put it into action. "This bill is very simple;” said Senator Anthony Cannella. “It just requires colleges to adopt policies concerning sexual assault, domestic violence, gang violence and stalking. They should have already been doing that."

The name of the bill, ‘Yes Means Yes,' mirrors the new, unambiguous definition of sexual consent that must be taken into account when investigating claims of sexual assault and other such crimes — a far cry from the more legally malleable ‘no means no’ approach to consent that was considered sufficient in past instances of sexual assault cases.

Thus far, California is the only state officially linked to ‘Yes Means Yes.’

Own the Conversation

Ask The Big Question: How much did you know about consent in college? Should high school educators designate more time to teaching kids about communication and what exactly constitutes consent in sex-ed classes? Or, does the consent lesson have to be taught even earlier?

Disrupt Your Feed: If you still think ‘no’ means ’yes’ when it comes to sex, just go ahead and unfriend me.

Drop This Fact: According to One in Four, a non-profit rape prevention organization, over 300,000 women enrolled in college experience rape each year. This overwhelming statistic doesn’t even include instances of other forms of sexual assault. Additionally, women in sororities are 74% more likely to experience rape than other college women.